Owners Plan To Close Compost Center

Ford Heights — A controversial composting facility, the focus of more than three years of lawsuits and odor complaints, is shutting down, one of the owners said last week.

Vince Cainkar, a co-owner of the 40-acre facility with Donald Clarke, the owner of Clarke's Garden Center, said the yard waste facility will not appeal the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency's decision to deny it a new operating permit.

The permit decision came July 15, and the company had until Aug. 19 to appeal. But that deadline passed without any action by the company, according to Anna Kukec, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Attorney General's Office.

A hearing stemming from a rash of lawsuits seeking to close the facility is still set for Aug. 31. But that hearing will now likely shift in focus to how the facility will be closed.

Opponents of the facility, who have complained for more than three years about the stench of rotting grass wafting through their nearby homes, said they were thrilled with the news.

"I'm delighted, absolutely delighted," said Maureen Drankiewicz, one of the leaders of the effort. "It's great to smell the fresh, clean air."

She said the neighbors bear no grudge against Clarke, who will continue to operate his garden center. But "it was a matter of health and property rights," she said. "The most important thing for our community is justice was served."

The facility, which opened in July 1990, the same month the state banned yard waste from landfills, was troubled almost from the beginning.

Successful composting usually requires that grass clippings be mixed with wood chips or leaves to minimize odor and spur the decomposition process. But because the facility, one of the largest in Illinois, opened in July, it had only grass to compost the first summer.

Neighbors in nearby Lynwood complained of odors so strong that they were unable to barbecue in their back yards, use back-yard pools or stroll through the neighborhood. One woman said even her dog refused to go outside.

Eventually the facility was charged with at least six separate odor emission violations by Cook County and became the focus of a complex set of lawsuits, which became even more complex when one presiding judge reversed her own decision against the facility and then retired, forcing much of the case to be reconsidered from the beginning.

At one point in the battle, employees of the composting facility attempted to bolster their position by videotaping neighbors enjoying themselves outdoors in their yards. The neighbors responded by wearing gas masks and instructing their children to hold their nose and yell, "It stinks, it stinks," if they found themselves being videotaped.